


What Makes a Father?

by KittenFair



Series: Headcanon Backstories [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Backstory, Families of Choice, GFY, Gen, Headcanon, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenFair/pseuds/KittenFair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Those eyes… the shape of the nose… the shape of the jaw… I can see myself there. Rupert Shinra, biologically speaking, is my ‘father’ - there’s no room for arguments there. But in a broader sense, is he my father, truly? What makes someone a father?”</p>
<p>A young Lazard watches the man who sired him through the television and wonders what makes a man a father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Makes a Father?

**Author's Note:**

> I'll take a moment to note that this bit of backstory is almost entirely my headcanon - the only thing I can vouch as canonically true is that Lazard grew up in the Slums. The rest is directly related to the character as I have personally developed him for my writing purposes.
> 
> Enjoy.

Davis found him sitting in front of the television, glowing blue eyes fixed on the screen - on the scene playing out of the cheerful celebration going Plateside of little Rufus Shinra’s third birthday. The toddler seemed sweet enough with fine blond hair and bright, curious blue eyes, and had most of Midgar wrapped around his tiny little fist.  
  
It was the sight of the man talking to the reporter that made the brunet’s blood boil, but he held his tongue and watched the kid instead. Lazard was thirteen this year, and a much more solemn boy than he’d been three years ago. The reason for that, the jagged, horrible scar on his throat that he hid behind a simple leather collar, was bare this afternoon, and as he watched, the teen raised a hand to brush callused fingertips over it.  
  
Sometimes, he wondered what it was that he thought, when he would sit and stare off, touching without seeming to think about it. He never asked, not sure he truly wanted to know; it hurt to watch. The kid hadn’t deserved that; it wasn’t his fault where he got his genes from, or that his old man was a self-serving ass. He could have lived his whole life and never known, but in one night someone had to ‘enlighten’ him in one of the cruelest ways possible.  
  
He heard a quiet, sharp inhale and tuned back in, grimacing as he watched Rupert Shinra bouncing his heir a bit, smiling brightly at the toddler - genuine or not, he was holding the boy, making sure he was showered with attention from the start. He contemplated how to get Lazard to turn it off, how to tell him not to torture himself over it, because it had to hurt. It _had_ to, he knew it did from the pain in his eyes, the way they brightened even more.  
  
"Davis," he startled at his name, and at the soft voice speaking it. For three years, Lazard had worked his ass off relearning speech. The lazy drawl that being born and bred in the slums had given him was gone now, a crisp and vaguely Kalmish accent to match his mother’s having taken its place.  
  
"Yeah, kid?"  
  
"At what point does a man become a father?"  
  
Well, _that_ was a loaded question. “What d’you mean?”  
  
Lazard lowered his hand, long fingers lacing over his knee as he nodded to the screen. “Those eyes… the shape of the nose… the shape of the jaw… I can see myself there. Rupert Shinra, biologically speaking, is my ‘father’ - there’s no room for arguments there. But in a broader sense, is he my father, truly? What makes someone a father?”  
  
One thing he’d never adjusted to, and wasn’t sure he _would,_ was how much Lazard had started really _thinking._ Not that he wasn’t a bright kid to begin with, but the years he’d spent essentially trapped in his own mind without much ability to communicate unless he planned out every word and wrote it down had left their mark. Even now he spent more time thinking than actually speaking. These philosophical questions… he wasn’t really sure. “You sound like you’ve thought about it.”  
  
The blond hummed in agreement, silent a moment. “One night, bedding my mother. That’s all it took, and really with the advances of medicine even that was unnecessary in theory. He tossed her aside as soon as he learned she was pregnant, and has had nothing to do with her since. It’s debatable if he’s even aware I exist, his firstborn son in blood. And yet….”  
  
Davis made a quiet sound, stepping over to sit by him, glancing at his profile. “Yeah?”  
  
"There’s a bond, the mysterious call of blood, I guess…." Lazard shrugged, frowning at the screen. "I couldn’t have been born without him. In that way, I am his son. But I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me. Our lives touched once, and never again after. He didn’t take care of mother, didn’t provide for us, didn’t do anything for either of us. He gave me his genetics, and that’s the end of it. Is that enough for him to be my father?"  
  
The shopkeep blew out a breath, arching a brow at him. “That’s heavy stuff this early in th’ mornin’ Laz.”  
  
That earned him a small, wry smile and a shrug. “Perhaps. I’m still not sure of the answer, honestly, and I imagine you’re not going to help this time.”  
  
"Some things, a man has t’ find his own answers for," he noted, feeling a bit uneasy at the sudden, intense look he was given. "What?"  
  
"He might be my father," the boy noted seriously, a hint of weariness in his tone. "I suppose, in a way, it’s not my choice any more than his, and denying it doesn’t make it any different, does it?"  
  
"Hey, he didn’t make you who you are, kid." Davis pointed out sternly, unsettled by the sudden gravity of the conversation. "You’re your own man, and you owe _nothing_ to him.”  
  
After a beat of silence, a small smile touched the youth’s lips, a shadow of the cheerful boy he’d been showing through as he stepped closer, blue eyes fixed intently on him. “You’re right, of course. Thanks… dad.”


End file.
